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bility. Accordingly, he provides an insightful account of the scientiac challenges that they faced. At the same time, Burney demonstrates that in courtrooms, scientiac facts and legal actions were not easily demarcated. Scientiac tests were themselves theatrical. In essence, this book is a chronicling of the attempts made to tame and discipline poisons. Those who made such efforts included both medical scientists, such as Robert Christison and Alfred Swaine Taylor, and novelists such as Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Inspired by Welsh’s work on circumstantial evidence, Burney skillfully uses poison trials to recast our notions of Victorian discussions of proof and evidence.1 Moreover, he traces the host of social anxieties that the public’s discussion of poisons exposed. Such worries related to contemporary evidence of both brutishness—burial clubs and misogyny—and overcivilization—secrecy, gambling, and life insurance, to name only a few. Like many ane microhistories, Burney’s engaging study reveals how, in the right hands, apparently arcane and unpromising material can be exploited to cast a fresh light on the past. There is no shortage of studies of famous nineteenth-century murders, but this book is unique; it has no obvious competitors. As noted above, Burney’s book is indebted to the earlier work of Welsh on circumstantial evidence, but Welsh is primarily interested in literature. Walkowitz and Hartman’s investigation of murder stories deal largely with gender, highlighting the one key theme that Burney curiously slights.2 His book jacket nevertheless boasts Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s beautiful portrayal of Lucrezia Borgia. This brief original study should appeal to students of history, history of medicine, history of science, law, English, and Victorian studies. It is well organized, clearly written, and jargon free.
April 01 2008 States of Inquiry: Social Investigations and Print Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the United States. By Oz Frankel (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) 370 pp. $48.00 Robert Mullen Robert Mullen Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Robert Mullen Online ISSN: 1530-9169 Print ISSN: 0022-1953 © 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.2008 The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2008) 38 (4): 596–598. https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh.2008.38.4.596 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Robert Mullen; States of Inquiry: Social Investigations and Print Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the United States. By Oz Frankel (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) 370 pp. $48.00. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2008; 38 (4): 596–598. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh.2008.38.4.596 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThe Journal of Interdisciplinary History Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.2008 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
